LIGHTS OUT!

Malicious software threatens power plants

1 U.S. facility was offline for 3 weeks last year

(OILPRICE) — In America’s energy industry, batted by last year’s Hurricane Sandy, can be added a new threat – computer malware, an ominous portent for the U.S. power grid.

Apparently, in October 2012 a computer malware virus invaded a turbine control system at a U.S. power plant, when a technician “unknowingly” inserted an infected USB computer drive into the network, keeping a plant off line for three weeks according to a Voice of America report.

The ever vigilant Department of Homeland Security, while reporting the incident, did not identify the plant or the perpetrator, but did inform the U.S. taxpayers that the malware was apparently generated by “criminal software,” which has been previously used to perpetrate financial crimes, including as identity theft, adding that the software was introduced into the facility’s operating software by an employee of a third-party contractor that conducts business with the unnamed utility.